


Move Like A Wraith

by axumun



Series: Kingdom Hearts: The Lost Worlds [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Language, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 16:16:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axumun/pseuds/axumun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ed sat up, then froze again, stunned by the arrival of three oddly-dressed strangers. Two of them were in animal costumes. The other was holding a giant key.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Move Like A Wraith

**Author's Note:**

> Title from My Chemical Romance's "Desert Song".
> 
> AO3 is being awful to me. I sincerely apologize for the awful format.

"Damn that Colonel and his damn..." Edward paused at the Central gate. "Been here for our share of times, haven't we, Al?"  
Al nodded, then looked up at the sky, swelling with darkened clouds. "Why does it always rain when he has something to tell us?"  
Ed shrugged loosely. "So he can't snap his fingers and blow me to pieces when I go all smartass on him. C'mon. Let's go seal our doom."  
*  
"Beautiful day, don't you think, Colonel Mustang?" Ed slumped down in Roy's most comfortable office chair, stretching out and folding up like a big cat.  
Roy didn't look up from his papers. He was writing something down very quickly, as if the information would fly away if it wasn't channeled through his pen in time. "Good afternoon, boys. I sure hope I wasn't interrupting anything of terrible importance; I have a mission for you two of the highest priority."  
Ed's ears perked up. "A mission?" he groaned. "I thought for sure this was about putting one of Hawkeye's bras in your sock drawer - "  
"Care to repeat that, Fullmetal?" Mustang finally looked up, hiding his embarrassment by sharpening his glare. Al was giving his brother a simliar glare, in fact; how could Roy ever trust him with doing the laundry of everyone in the barracks?  
"Oh - nothing...What's the mission?"  
Mustang sighed. "I'm sure you've heard about the...well, there's nothing to call it but an invasion. Shadowy monsters have appeared who are responsible for several recent murders and disappearances of men, women, and children alike. The military has deducted that these creatures are simply drones working under one leader, toward an unclear goal."  
"Sounds familiar," Ed breathed, just to piss Roy off...But he was interested, honestly.  
"Dammit, focus, Fullmetal. Your mission is to find this leader."  
Ed's eyes nearly bugged out of his head.  
"But Colonel," Al began, "we have nothing to go on. You said yourself that they're mysterious and foreign, and we don't know what they want...how can we even know where to start?"  
"And," Ed followed up when Al was at a loss for words, "why us? Isn't someone like Hawkeye better suited for search and destroy missions?"  
Roy sighed again, but not out of frustration; more like he was contemplating how to exlain himself. "It's true that I'm the one who appointed you to this mission - "  
"I knew it was because of the bra," Ed concluded.  
"No, Ed," Roy snapped, a vein bulging in his forehead. "I believed you were best suited because military weapons are useless against these creatures. Hawkeye's a sharpshooter. You two have proven to have invaluable genius on the battlefield, not to mention the potency of your alchemy. I chose you because you can make the pieces fit."  
Ed seemed convinced. He nodded cordially.   
"Do you understand what I'm asking of you?" Mustang inquired.  
Ed nodded again, his confidence dropping when he realized that Al was right about having no idea where to start. "Yup; follow the trail of bread crumbs to the mothership, right?"  
"He means what I said," Al translated. "We know what you want us to do, but how?"  
"I'm afraid this is all the information we know for sure. I can show you the files of the people who've been murdered, if that'll be of any help."  
Ed hopped up, making his way to Mustang's desk and taking the papers Mustang offered him with slight hesitation. "It just might."  
*  
"This is awful," Al murmured, aghast. "This witness account says that a creature attacked this little girl and seemed to..." He heaved a shuddering sigh.  
Ed looked on from his own stack of files. "...to rip out the heart!?"  
"...leaving behind no body." Al's arms fell heavily onto the Central library table.   
"Bastards," Ed breathed, scanning his paper as if it was a map that pinpointed their target's location. "The longer we sit around here, the farther these things will spread, and the more people they'll kill."  
Al gasped, sitting upright. "E-Ed? What if they get to Resembool? We have to call Winry and Granny - "  
Ed shuddered. How hadn't that even crossed his mind? "Yeah, good idea. I'll go do that now..."  
*  
"Win, I'm being serious!" Ed snapped over static bursts of feminine laughter.   
"Okay, Ed," Winry said once she'd composed herself. "I'll keep my eyes peeled for these...shadow-things. Sounds like something from a children's book."  
Ed had a brain wave and felt something pull him back toward the multitude of books surrounding his brother, who was still at the table perusing their only leads. "So, see you soon, Win, gotta go, say hi to Gran and Den for me! Bye!" Ed set the receiver back almost carelessly and ran.  
*  
"What're you doing, Brother?"   
Ed was singularly focused on the maze of bookcases. He pulled out several books, only to flip through them briskly and set them back with an unsatisfactory grimace.  
"I've been thinking about where those creatures came from. Winry said they sound like something from a kid's story...Al, what else could possibly create something with their description other than alchemy? Probably some amateur trying to transmute something they shouldn't have been."   
Ed had been reading as he'd explained himself. As he set down his current book, he turned back to Al and said, "I'm gonna go look at the military reports."  
*  
As Ed had hoped for, a report had just come in from a local State Alchemist named Carmen, who was studying the shadows: she had supposedly managed to catch one, learning that its diet indeed consisted of hearts - preferrably those of humans. The brothers were horrified.   
Carmen went on to write that she would make attempts to train and tame the shadow, stating that she was feeding the beast the hearts of small animals. She hinted at its capability to do more than take a heart..."perhaps something even more valuable".  
"Al," Ed breathed, in complete disbelief.   
Al stiffened. "Does that mean what I think it does?"  
"It's worth checking out...Even if she's not...y'know...it might give us some information about how to stop them for good."  
*  
"Carmen's file said she was...around here somewhere..." Ed stopped, crossing his arms and giving a good once-over of the forest around them. It was becoming late, and the setting of the sun created long, fat shadows in front of the trees which had Al treating every step with caution.  
"Maybe she moved," Al murmured, trying to chuckle.  
Ed slowly began to walk again, treading very quietly. He whispered, "I wonder if their targets are random...Are they attracted to something? If only we knew, we could warn everyone, buy ourselves some time..."  
For long, subdued minutes, they searched for a light, a clearing...something to suggest civilization. By now it was very dark, and they didn't notice the Neoshadows peering from behind centuries-old trees.  
Al saw two pairs of glowing eyes, shouting "Brother!" just as they pounced on Ed, knocking him down.  
Al swept the dark forms backwards with a powerful kick, but they didn't seem fazed. They only seemed to multiply, and grow stronger...  
Ed was back up by this time, lashing at their attackers after transmuting his handblade. The metal cut through them easily, but the shadows weren't injured.  
"Shit," he muttered, "if only I knew what you were made of!"  
And it was true: the shadows weren't made of any terrestrial elements, which made using their own composition against them impossible. Transmuting a weapon out of the surrounding wood or vegetation was equally as useless.  
"ED!"  
The time that Ed had taken to ponder a strategy was enough time for a good two dozen of the creatures to surround Al, pinning him to the ground against all of his thrashing. They seemed to be searching for something...  
"Good luck," Ed muttered under his breath, running toward his opponents to give Al room to move. "If it's a heart you want, you'll have to come after me."  
*  
"Is this it?" Sora looked around, but sure enough, there was nothing around but darkness and trees: an ideal dwelling for a Heartless swarm.  
"Kinda spooky," Goofy murmured, shivering a bit.  
"There should be a town somewhere," Donald reasoned.  
"Yeah, let's look around." Sora brandished his Keyblade and ran ahead.  
*  
By this time Ed had sustained a few good scratches on his face, but he was careful to keep his chest protected.   
"Let's just go, this is pointless!" Al didn't have time to respond to Ed's suggestion before a Neoshadow kicked him square in the ribs, sending him tumbling. Al stood over him protectively and tried to fend of the rest of the legion, but there were just too many now...Everything looked black.  
Over the swishes of the shadows' movement, Al heard footsteps...Probably even bigger ones, he thought...Maybe the leader?  
But no...He heard voices.  
"Heartless!" came a wheezy cry.  
"Look's like someone's in trouble, too!" This came from a boy, his spikey hair standing out in the moonlight.  
"Ed, someone's here!" he called, still trying to keep the monsters away. Ed still hadn't quite recovered; every time he managed to stand up, he was knocked down with more force than the time before.  
Only moments later, the battlefield was mostly cleared. Ed sat up, then froze again, stunned by the arrival of three oddly-dressed strangers. Two of them were in animal costumes. The other was holding a giant key...Maybe they some kind of freakshow? Then again, Ed thought, he and his brother were often mistaken for circus people, so who was he to judge?  
The shadows were simply disappearing in clouds of black smoke, until at last, there were none to speak of.  
Ed just sat there for a moment, his mouth agape. Al was just as shocked.  
"Are you hurt?" The spikey-haired boy ran toward Ed to examine his wounds, giving Ed a moment to look at the kid's key. It looked like metal, but it wasnt steel, or platinum, or iron...Just like the creatures, it was composed of something other-worldly.  
"'m good," Ed lied, struggling to stand but managing it. Al rushed to him, keeping him upright, and it made Ed feel like a helpless child.  
"You don't look it." The boy raised his key high into the air. Ed braced himself for something weird. Then he yelled, "Heal!" and nothing happened. The kid stared at his big lockpick like he'd expected it to end world hunger.  
Definitely delusional people.  
"Let me try," said the shortest of the group: a duck wearing a wizard hat. He lifted a staff above his head and chanted like the boy.  
Zip.  
"Fooey," said the duck. "Why isn't our magic working?"  
Ed gawked. "Magic? You're kidding me."  
Al rubbed the back of his helmet. "What my brother here means to say is, thank you for helping us. We could've really been hurt back there."  
The boy spun his key around and put it over his shoulder. "No worries! That's our job!"  
"Where are you from?" Al asked kindly, like these guys were long lost friends.  
The three looked at each other, as if conspiring a lie. "We're from all over," said the third oddball: a dog with thumbs and feet; that was the last nail in Ed's coffin.  
"We're trying to get rid of the Heartless," said the boy. "I'm Sora; that's Donald, and Goofy."  
Al cocked his head. "That's what they're called...We're trying to get rid of them, too. You seem to know more than us. Can you help us find their leader?"  
Sora smirked. "Leader? That's a piece of cake."  
Al gave a thumbs up. "I'm Alphonse; that's my big brother, Edward." Ed gave a dismissive wave, and Al sighed in defeat. "Don't mind him; this has been a lot for us to handle. Can you three come with us? We're looking for an alchemist who might know something about - "  
"An alka...what?" Sora's brows furrowed together.  
"You claim to be travellers and you haven't heard of alchemy?" Ed spat, incredulous, and he thought that maybe he shouldn't have been so cold to the guys who saved his ass, but this was ridiculous. "And you think magic is real."  
"But it's true," Goofy insisted. "Magic's gotten us outta lotsa sticky situations."  
Ed scoffed, rolling his shoulders. Stiff, but moving. He'd live. "You wanna see 'magic'?" Ed paced around the tiny clearing, picking up sticks. Sora scratched his head.  
He set them in a pile at Sora's feet, then knelt down, putting his palms against the ground. A moment and a flash of light later, the heap was transformed into a chid's rocking horse; not very practical right now, but what was, fighting creatures made of darkness itself?  
"Whoa!" Sora gasped. "How did you - "  
"Alchemy," Ed muttered, like it was the most obvious answer on the planet. "Now come on, the longer we dilly-dally here, the more people here will die."  
Sora swallowed hard, as if that thought had never occured to him before.  
Ed started walking, then decided that was a big mistake; his side ached and his feet were heavy. His right arm was still intact, though; thank goodness. He couldn't take a lecture from Winry on top of dealing with all of this bullshit.  
"Wait," Sora called, tossing Ed a bottle which he caught easily. It was glowing with the light of little green stars. Probably more fairy tale stuff.  
"Drink it," Sora instructed, like he was telling Ed how to breathe.  
Shrugging, Ed knocked back the whole bottle in one swig. After just a couple of moments he felt very warm, and all of his pain was gone.  
"Thanks," Ed said, meaning it. He lead the way.  
*  
Sora was fascinated by Al's explanation of alchemy, which was interesting to Ed, since alchemy wasn't just a concept to him: it was a lifestyle. This philosophy made meeting people who thrived on magic spells and enchanted weapons seem unbearably ludicrous.  
"I wanna try," Sora said.  
"Fat chance," Ed told him, but the venom in his tone was gone, replaced by sensible logic. "It took years to get to where we are now. Are you ready to memorize textbooks, sacrifice all of your free time, learn the chemical makeup of everything around you down to the atom?"  
Sora gulped. "I guess not."  
Ed stopped suddenly. "Do you see that, Al?"  
"Is that a light, Brother?"  
"Better hope so!" He started running.  
The occasional Heartless ambushed them, but the three strangers subdued them while hardly having to look. Ed had to be thankful for them, no matter how strange they were.   
The party followed the glimmer to a stone wall easily twice as high as the highest tree. In its center was a locked iron gate.  
Before Ed could make any suggestions, Sora was lifting his big stupid key, and what the hell was he thinking, anyway? It wasn't like it would open any random lock ever...  
Except, Ed quickly learned, it would.  
A beacon of light shone from its tip, seeming exaggeratedly bright in the dark. The lock came undone with a metallic clang and disappeared...Why was everything just disappearing? Where did it go? Was Ed dreaming? That must be it. Except he wouldn't have needed a potion if...  
"C'mon!" Sora called; now he was leading the way.  
*  
Ed's stomach turned sickeningly as they entered the building behind the gate - and okay, breaking in was weird; what if this wasn't even her house?   
It didn't seem like a residence at all; if it was, its inhabitant wasn't trying to hide the lab equipment, the test tubes, the foul chemical smell pervading every room.  
Al had knocked politely on the door, bless his soul, but Ed reasoned that this was no time to be curteous. Despite the oversized gate, the door had opened easily. Now Ed was half-wishing they'd found a different lead.  
"Dammit," he growled. "Been in these places one too many times."  
Sora made a face like he was about to ask what Ed meant, but there was a sad remembrance in Ed's eyes that stopped him.  
"Hello!!!???" Sora cried, like an idiot. He was just asking for trouble. Of course, instead of being greeted by a human like he'd probably hoped, a circle of Soldiers answered his call.  
Ed and Al tried not to seem passive, kicking the creatures backwards and giving Sora and his friends an opening to finish them off. The last shadow was flung against a bookcase as it vaporized, and it seemed to move very easily.  
"It's fake," Ed said, pushing it aside. "This girl doesn't think too far outside the box."  
A tiny door was revealed, just barely big enough for Al to crawl through. Ed had another one of his usual pangs of guilt over the state of his little brother's body, but he brushed it aside before it could bring him down.  
There was a tiny, flickering light bulb on the ceiling of the crowded cellar. It was just enough light to discern the scene about to unfold: there was a woman (none other than Carmen; Ed recognized her face from her picture on her file) with messy hair and a stained lab coat backing herself into a corner as a wave of Heartless approached, seeming to enjoy taking their time and drawing out her fear.  
The fact that this was a woman who was probably making Philosopher's Stones and using the Heartless to harvest souls didn't occur to Ed in the split second that he had to react; Sora, Donald, and Goofy rushed to her aid and Ed called to her, "Run!", although it didn't seem like she had anywhere to run to.  
When Ed got a better look at her face, though, Carmen didn't seem too spooked. She stood her ground, but she didn't seem to be in shock. By now she had enough room to get to the door...why wasn't she moving?  
"I was so close," Ed heard her murmur. He felt like vomiting. "If you'd given me another day..."  
"Cut the crap," Ed spat. He didn't feel sorry for her now that Sora had cleared all of the Heartless from the room. Now he would expose her: "You're using these things to make Philosopher's Stones!"  
The woman's expression was one of genuine shock. "No...no. I'd never. I was teaching them to help people, to show compassion. I was trying to extract their darkness."  
"They are darkness!" Sora pleaded.   
Ed softened. He was an expert at detecting lies, and Carmen wasn't feeding him any.   
"Well," Ed went on, calmly, "your little...pets are killing people, Carmen. We need to figure out how to stop them for good."  
Her kicked-puppy expression immediately preceeded another spontaneous wave of Heartless. "Maybe my research was for nothing after all," she whispered, like surrendering.  
Sora, Donald, and Goofy were already hacking away, while Ed and Al positioned themselves in front of Carmen to protect her from the swarm, but she wasn't fazed.   
"Don't bother," she muttered, apathetic. She managed to push herself in front of Ed - proving that she had a great deal of strength and speed - and threw herself upon a Heartless in the corner of the room that Sora and company weren't occupying.  
Al reached for her and Ed was running, and Sora let down his guard to guage the commotion in front of them, but every move they made was just   
a split   
second   
too   
late.  
A Soldier's claws had raked her chest, and she was arching backwards in slow motion, already gone before the darkness harvested her heart. Her limp body fell into Ed's arms only moments before she materialized into nothing...  
Including her heart...  
Much to Ed's shock, the Heartless extracted not a bleeding, twitching muscle but a glowing, crystalline geometric heart that flew upward before slipping away unseen, and goddammit, that was just frustrating, watching everything disappear into thin air!  
Sora had cleared all the Heartless again but it was just no use, none of it was any use; Ed was shaking, thinking of all the times he'd been in this very position: watching someone die in his fucking arms, sitting in rotting labs with God-knows-what creations its creator had left behind.  
It would never end.  
Never.  
But there was no time for any of that, because all of the light was practically sucked out of the room by the invasion of the next giant Heartless, who seemed like a direct result of Carmen's death...That was weird. Was this how they were created? Was this why they were multiplying? This whole time, has Sora been killing off the souls taken by the darkness all over again?   
Ed was too weak to move, sitting motionless through Al's attempts to rouse him. Finally Al was forced to scoop him up bridal style and get him to safety on the other side of the room.  
"We'll handle this," Sora assured them. Ed caught a glimpse of the boy's face through his fallen bangs: his usual boyishness and ignorant innocence was replaced by a determination he'd seldom seen before - the mature expression of a man with a duty. It gave him a shard of reprieve; something to cling to.  
Al sat in front of him, shielding him from the madness. He couldn't manage many facial expressions as it was but Ed was excellent at reading him: Al wanted to be reassuring, but he was just as disconcerted.  
Donald and Goofy were bashing away directly at the thrashing monstrosity, but Sora had stayed back. His shoulders were hunched, and his key was pointed at the Heartless, its tip shimmering with a steadily growing light. It swelled into a ball, swirling and bright and colorful. When Sora was satisfied with its size he staggered back and cried, "Ragnarok!", careening the light straight into its destination.  
...Except that was kind of ridiculous since magic didn't exist and they already said their attempts at using it were unsuccessful. But this particular power didn't seem to have anything to do with magic, but seemed to come from Sora himself.  
The Heartless didn't last very long.  
A half-gloved hand fell upon Ed's right arm, then had shrunk back as if not expecting to feel something metal under his cloak.  
"Edward?" Sora murmured carefully. "There's good news."  
"What's the bad news?" Ed countered, mananging to keep his voice from wavering.  
Sora shook his head smiling. "The Heartless was that woman's Heartless."  
Ed shrugged. "Yeah?" That probably meant she was dead for good now...Good news though, Ed chanted mentally.  
"That means her heart will come back."  
Ed brightened. "She's alive!?"  
Sora smiled. "She might not be here, but she should be okay now."  
After a moment, Ed faltered again. "Are they all gone?"  
"No...That's our mission. It might take a long time." Sora's eyes met the ceiling longingly.  
"Are you staying here?" Al asked.  
"We can't," Goofy returned. "There're other worlds in trouble."  
"You can't leave!" Ed cried. "You're the only one who've been able to beat them! They're killing innocent people! They'll start a war!"  
Sora hesitated. "It wont be long," he assured Ed with a stunning confidence, which completely unraveled his previous statement. "It'll be soon. I promise." Donald and Goofy nooded affirmatively.  
"Come back soon?" Ed murmured feebly. Only an hour or so ago he regretted the thought of even tagging along with such weirdos, but he realized now that they weren't just his and Al's lifeline, but maybe even the lifeline of Amestris itself...  
"Of course!" Donald cried, sticking up a feathered thumb.   
They all crawled out from the cellar and took a good look around. Something felt weird to Ed. Something begged him not to go just yet.  
As if on cue, the fake bookcase had begun to glow, because apparently Ed's world didn't follow the laws of physics of Sora's, at least not in every way.  
Sora didn't seem alarmed; he readied his big stupid key and seemed to go into a trance for a minute: eyes closed, shoulders tense, arms outstretched.  
"What was that?" Ed asked, worry creeping in around the edges of his voice.  
Sora grinned. "This world is safe now. The Heartless won't destroy it."  
Ed wasn't impressed. "We'll destroy it ourselves first, figuring out what to do about them all."  
At that, the grin flipped itself over. "Just hang on," Sora said sternly, his determination returning. It was infectious.  
Then they were gone, going back to their...ship? They mentioned a ship. There were no oceans for days, weeks...A spaceship? This was beyond delusional and just fucked.  
*  
"Carmen Degetta checked into Base just this morning," Mustang stated, his elbows on his desk, chin resting squarely on his hands. It made him seem creepy, at least to Ed.  
This information made him forget about all of that, though. "How is she?"  
"Shaken," Roy answered, "but stable. She informed me that she is discontinuing her research on the...what'd you call them? Heartless."  
Ed nodded with approval.   
"I have to admit, your version of events is difficult to believe. This is all very hard to swallow. Even more troubling is that we seem to be defenseless."  
The brothers nodded gravely.  
"He promised me...That boy...Sora promised me he'd take care of them," Ed said, trying to find comfort in the ugly truth that there was nothing that anyone else could do - not the military, not the citizens, nor Ed or Al.  
Al chimed in with his grounding logic: "This is something bigger than us, even bigger than this whole world. Those guys knew a lot that we didn't. It's terrible and people will die. But in the end, when Sora finds a way...they'll all come back, like Carmen did."  
Roy didn't move for long moments. His eyes had opened and he was watching the clock like it would fix all of his problems. "There's no sugarcoating it," he said.  
Minutes passed - long, dreary minutes of apprehension. Finally Roy said, "Degetta lost a brother to those creatures. She thought the only way she could...keep him alive and make it worth something was to train the Heartless to help others."  
Ed swallowed. "That's what she told you?"  
A short, professional nod.  
"Colonel?" Al inquired. He hadn't talked to Ed about this yet, but it had been weighing on him lately. "Might we request...a day or two to return to Resembool?"  
Ed hadn't thought about actually returning; his head was too busy working out all of this talk about darkness and hearts and giant keys. But suddenly he was filled with a longing; he needed the validation of the presence of the people he loved, not just static over a phone line.  
"I'd imagine that can be arranged," Roy answered with a tiny, unreadable smirk. Damn his unreadable smirks, Ed thought. Roy visibly relaxed, and sifted through his paperwork for some appropriate form.  
Later, on the train, as the sun slowly met the landscape, Ed looked out the window up at the sky, wondering if Sora was under it.  
"Make it soon," he whispered, so softly that Al couldn't hear.


End file.
